KANSAS CITY—According to Cassidy Turley, KansasCity's 49.9-million-square-foot office market produced54,000-square-feet of net absorption in the second quarter, animprovement that, although modest, indicates that the market mayhave turned a corner. Like many secondary markets across theMidwest, “we don't have big swings back and forth, but it seemslike the C-suite guys in Kansas City have become more comfortableexpanding their labor forces as we come out of our deep freeze,”Michael Mayer, managing principal at the CassidyTurley offices in Kansas City, tells GlobeSt.com.

The gains are modest because most companies have also decided toemphasize efficiency and limit expansions of their footprints.“Mid-year vacancy for the Kansas City office market was 19.4%,”Cassidy Turley researchers found. “The vacancy rate has driftedbetween 19% and 20% since the end of 2012.”

And although the downtown has attracted a host of new residents,many of them millennials, “its office market still struggles andthe rents are flats,” Mayer says. Still, some submarkets,especially those in the suburbs, put up solid numbers. “You go toSouth Johnson County and it's the shining star.” South JohnsonCounty had 144,000-square-feet of net absorption and South KansasCity recorded 112,000-square-feet.